


Pearls and Poetry

by soyforramen



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:29:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17556011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soyforramen/pseuds/soyforramen
Summary: A series of Varchie Tumblr prompts





	1. Chapter 1

47 for varchie. I’m thinking they’re moving in together and getting used to each other habits

I may have stolen a page from When Harry Met Sally on this one. Cheers! (Habits are not chairs, but I could not shake this idea.)

Xxxx

“You’re seriously like a man-child. That hideous thing has to go.” 

Veronica stamped her foot. The act was far less intimidating in these soft slippers than she’d intended, but her point still stood. There was no way that monstrosity was going to reside in the same apartment as her.

“But Ron. I love that recliner,” Archie whined. He leaned over to pull at the lever and the chair gave a creaking moan. Half the footrest sprung forward, while the other half refused to budge.

It was a sight that should have brought tears to her eyes in laughter at just how ridiculous it looked, and one day it would. But now, confronted with the idea of this Frankenstein of furniture it was all she could do to not shudder.

“I can fix this!” Archie said. He pulled hard at the leaver, the muscles in his arms straining, and threw his weight back. Still the footrest refused to budge.

Veronica sighed and rubbed her forehead. They’d gone round and round about the stupid chair for almost thirty minutes now when, according to her timetable, they should have started unpacking the kitchen.

She knew she should have hired a moving service.  
 _  
‘Ronnie, it’ll be fun to do this together!’_

_‘It’d be a waste of money to have some stranger rifle through our things. We’d just have to move them all again when we get there.’_

_‘It’s an opportunity we can’t pass up. Like Marie Kando said, we have a chance to ‘keep only those things that speak to our hearts.’_

If Veronica had known that this hideous, vaguely maroon colored chair with it’s questionable stains all over it was what Archie had meant when he talked about his heart, Veronica would have questioned both her sanity and her reasoning when she’d agreed to marry him.

‘Why do you even want that nauseating thing? It left a trail of something in its wake when you dragged it up here. It smells of old milk . And what even if that thing on the back of it?”

Archie leaned over the armest to look at the back of the chair and shrugged. “We never figured it out. Jug just called it ‘Reggie’ and tried not to look at it too closely.”

“Please, Archie. Just take it away. For me? I’ll buy you a new chair. A better chair. Ten chairs! As many chairs as it will take you to throw that, that Babadook of a chair out.”

Archie jumped out of the chair and reached for Veronica. Gently he tugged her towards the chair.

“If you just give it a chance. It’s -,” he trailed off as he thought about it, never a good sign when you’re attempting to ward off a coup de inclinable, “- a unique experience. Once you sit in it, no other chair will ever be the same.”

Veronica wrinkled her nose and stared at Archie in disbelief. His big, gentle, pleading brown eyes were begging her to trust him. How could she say no to one simple request when he insisted on unpacking shirtless?

“I knew I should have hired a mover,” she muttered as she gingerly sat down in the recliner. “At least they can be bribed.”

When she sat down, the footrest finally kicked out and Veronica was all but swallowed up by the chair. The cushion was depressed on one side and the smell of old milk was intensified ten fold with a tinge of must and Axe body spray. Odd, considering Archie never wore anything of the sort. As she shifted to a more comfortable position, a spring dug into her hip. 

Veronica closed her eyes and did her best to find something nice to say about the chair. It certainly was a chair. It took up space. It -

Something scuttled across the underside of the cushion and Veronica screeched as she threw herself into Archie’s arms. 

“No absolutely not! I forbid it. That thing is a Sam Raimi nightmare come to life. If you value our relationship, if you value me you will burn it to the ground right now.”

“But Ronnie -”

Veronica groaned and leaned her head against Archie’s strong shoulders. She wrapped her arms around her neck and breathed in his scent to clear her nostrils. To her horror he’d absorbed some of it’s smell when he sat on it.

“Why is it so important to you? Did you grandfather leave it to you in his will? Is it the World’s Most Comfortable Chair? Did it somehow save your life by eating a rampaging maniac bent on destroying you?”

Archie shrugged. “I just really like it. And I think it pulls the room together.”

Exasperated, Veronica did the only thing she could do to distract herself. She pulled Archie’s head towards her for a long over-due kiss.

“I love you, darling, but that recliner is not a rug and you are not the Dude and I absolutely loathe that chair.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An in between scene from 3x10 based on the prompt: "Cuddle me?"

She never thought she’d see him again. Never thought she’d touch him again, be alone with him again. He’d been gone so long, without a word, that she wondered if he’d finally left it all behind. For him, at least, it seemed so easy to cut her out of his life. To go it alone. To leave her behind in this town to spoil into a shell of former herself. 

It took all she had to try to become a better person when she’d first stepped foot into Riverdale. Now she was so different she hardly recognized herself in the mirror. She’d changed. They all had. This town had forced them to become some warped, mirror image of everyone who lived in it.

And they weren’t changed for the better. They’d become tougher, harder, jaded, and rusted. They had to if they wanted to survive. Like a virus, Riverdale had inoculated itself into her being to recreate every cell of her in its own image, replicating it’s decay onto her DNA. 

It wasn’t a look she liked on any of them. Especially not on him. 

Next to her, Archie breathed deep, asleep to the world around them. Her eyes traced his profile, nose broken, chipped away at from needless violence. A scar at the corner of his lip, a bruise along his neck. The puckered scar along his chest that still hurt when she touched it.

When she’d met him, he was everything she’d thought small town life would be. Charming, caring, self-less. Simple. She thought she could find a new life as long as she could be his friend. As long as she could look to him to ground her against what she’d been raised to believe.

He didn’t deserve what this town was doing to him. He wasn’t built for the corruption and rot pooling around them. He’d been right to run away from this place, to run away and not look back. 

Except he’d left her behind. 

Only to reappear before her at La Bonne Nuit, a specter of a past she longed to return to. It felt like a dream to see him again, his hair so dark she believed she was hallucinating. It wasn’t until she touched him, until she pulled him tight against her, as if to merge their bodies into one, that she knew he was real. 

She wanted to hit him, to scream and cry and rage at him. To ask him why he’d done this to her. He’d been so quick to push her away, to push them away. He hadn’t even thought to ask if she wanted to go with him, to wonder if she needed to run away just as much as she had. All it would have taken was three words, and she’d have left with him in a heartbeat. 

And then he looked at her with such apology, such affection and longing. He’d taken a step towards her, and she fell all over again. It was all she could do to never let him go again.

It was a mystery to her why she’d let him stay the night, to share the small space she’d claimed as her own. Why after he’d finally reappeared she still needed to be in his presence as desperately as she had when they’d first met. He was her sun in that moment, illuminating the darkness that threatened to consume her. 

Now, lying on an air mattress she’d stashed in the back of the bar, he lay next to her. Peaceful, calm. The storm in him quelled for now. She didn’t dare to hope it was because of her. 

She shifted and the air mattress jostled beneath them. Archie shot awake, ready to bolt once more. 

Veronica lay a hand on his chest and urged him to lie back down. His eyes focused on her, adrenaline ebbing as he realized where he was. 

“Cuddle?” she asked. 

The word sounded childish, pleading, a child begging for a treat. But lately, his arms were the only place she found safety and comfort. He was home, the only thing that mattered to her now. 

Archie, half-asleep once more, pulled her closer and she settled into the warm shelter of his body. She scooted closer, wanting nothing more than to merge together with him to form something stronger, something resilient enough to withstand this towns corruption.

The world might have been against them, her father most certainly was. And the way things had devolved, neither of them would make it out alive without their share of scars, seen and unseen. Tomorrow they might be pulled apart again, by some new maniac, by some new dalliance, by some new trauma

Come what may, tonight was enough. It had to be enough.


	3. Please Come Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Please come home, I miss you.

1\. On the outskirts of Riverdale, Archie watched as Jughead spoke into the payphone, letting Betty and F.P. know where they were, what he was doing. Even from this distance his posture was relaxed, calm. It was a direct contrast to how Archie was feeling, every nerve, every muscle, every joint ready to be gone from here. 

Archie was grateful beyond words that Jughead had insisted on going with him when he found out about the bounty. That he’d refused to let Archie go through this alone, even though some part of Archie knew Jughead’s insistence had more to do with living out the lives of so many of those long dead authors he worshiped.

But Jughead wasn’t the person who Archie wanted to be crossing the country with.

A surge of longing shot through him as he did his best not to dial that number he knew by heart. The number he knew could soothe some of this pain. He slipped a hand into his coat pocket where his cell phone lay dead from the last two days on the road. His thumb ran over the glossy surface, keying in the number as it went.

Even if he could talk to her, she’d tell him what he didn’t want to hear. What he didn’t want to believe. She’d tell him they could work this out together. That together they could stand up to anything. Whatever stood against Veronica Lodge would fall when it came in front of her determination. 

Everything she would tell him would be enough to make him second guess his footing. Enough to second guess this self-imposed exile.

She’d be angry, too. Angry that he’d left her without a word. And she’d have every right to that anger. 

But this time, Archie couldn’t let himself be convinced by her. He couldn’t risk her getting hurt because of him. Too many people already had. 

There was blood on his hands, blood that could never wash out. Blood that would only stain her silk satin sheets. Blood that would turn her white pearls a murderous pink.

He’d stain her to her soul, and that was one thing Archie couldn’t do. 

Jughead hung up and Archie stood to wipe the dirt from his jeans. He scraped his palms across the denim, a small burning ache lingering across them. The ghost of her hand around his wrist called to him and he tried to rub the feeling away.

Concern splashed across his face, Jughead gave Archie a side-long glance. It was obvious he wanted to talk, probably about whatever Betty wanted to pass along. But Jughead passed on doing so. Instead he fell into step with Archie as they walked the silent road to Greendale, both heavy with something neither could quite put a word to.

 

2\. Late at night, cicadas screaming around them and the smell of hay heavy in the air, Archie stared at the stars above them. Next to him, Jughead snored and rolled over. He’d always been able to sleep no matter the circumstances. A survival instinct, he’d once called it. Archie hadn’t understood what he’d meant at the time, and even now it made little sense. Sleep was a luxury now, one Archie couldn’t afford to indulge in. Not with so much running through his head, and even more running after him.

It had been a week since they’d first come to the farm, but time meant nothing to him now. It stretched out into a puddle disturbed by a rock skipped across it, the ripples distorting days and minutes into one and the same. 

On the farm, time held no meaning outside of day and night. Things were simple. Wake at dawn, feed the animals. Heavy labor the rest of the day, broken up by a meal. The physical work took his mind off everything he’d been running from. It wasn’t hard to see him living out the rest of his days here. 

Jughead, though, was unnerved by this place. Those he’d spoke to in town had unsettled him, the dice seeming to follow him at every turn, a reminder and an omen of Riverdale. But for Archie, this place felt safe. 

And as guilty as he felt about it, Laura made him feel safe. With how sweet she’d been to her sister, with how kind she’d been to open her doors to two strange travelers. She’d understood how hard it had been for them when Archie had told her the truth. She had even gone so far as to ask if there was anything else she could do for them.

He hadn’t felt this safe in a long time. 

No, that wasn’t true. There had been one place. One person.

That safety was long gone, along with it his rose-colored dreams of their future together. Both had been dashed to pieces under the strange circumstances they’d both found themself in.

Jughead’s phone pinged, its screen throwing up an eerie glow. While Jughead slept on, Archie’s fingers crept towards it. It would be so easy to make one phone call. So easy to dial the number seared across his heart.

The phone went dark, the barn’s walls rushed up to fill in the space. It was tight, choking the air out of this place.   
Archie shoved his feet into his shoes and ran out of the barn to escape it.

 

3\. A knife against his throat helped put things into perspective, Archie realized. It was a direct threat to his life, an   
indirect threat to everyone he’d cared about. A threat that drove him further and further into the Canadian wilderness. As hard as it was to leave Jughead behind, it was a million times hard to leave his father at the border. Even with Vegas at his side, Archie’s future looked grim.

Jughead’s cell, slipped into Archie’s coat pocket at the junkyard, vibrated. Archie glanced around, unsure if he was alone in such darkness, and pulled it out. In the corner a single bar flashed, the first spot of service he’d had in hours.

He unlocked the screen only to find a text from Veronica, a jumble of words asking where they were, whether Archie was safe. Why he wouldn’t talk to her. 

His vision blurred as a deep loneliness threatened to strangle him. One more reminder that he wasn’t just leaving his family and friends behind. He was leaving pieces of himself behind as well. 

It was all too much all at once. He hit the call button one last time. All he needed was to hear her voice one last time to get through this. The phone rang through to Veronica’s voice, as velvet and lush as her hair, ordered him to leave a message, but he didn’t dare. He’d already put her, and himself, in too much danger by calling. 

Archie shoved it to the bottom of his pack. He headed deeper into the dark woods.

It had been pure, dumb luck when he’d found the old abandoned cabin in the woods just before dawn. Wood had rotted away in some areas and weeds had grown up above the windowsill. The door with its parks ranger sign fell off when Archie tugged it open, but the inside was relatively untouched, save for the racoons that had made a vacation home in the closet and the years of dust that covered every surface.

Archie fell into the old spring mattress, his body aching and his eyes closing of their own accord. He barely noticed Vegas nestled up against him.

When he woke, the air around him was suffocatingly hot. Dust motes danced in the late afternoon sun and a buzzing noise came from across the room. He propped himself up on his elbows, a part of his dazed mind thinking ‘wasps’, but there was nothing there. He fell asleep again and slept dreamlessly until the next dawn.

It was another two days of working to put the cabin back together that Archie remembered about the phone buried in his backpack. He’d promised to send some signal back to his father when he’d found a place to stay and this shack looked as good as any. He pulled the phone out and found that it still had a charge but no signal. A trek to the nearby creek fixed that, and as he sent out a text to his father the phone buzzed with missed calls.

Fingers shaking, Archie held the phone up to his ear to listen to the solitary voicemail. 

“Please come home,” Veronica said, her voice thick and cracked. “I miss you.”

A black heaviness started in his heart until it pooled down into his feet. He listened to her voice again, another time. A third, a fourth, a twelfth. He listened to it again and again, a sickly sweet punishment for everything he’d done. For all the pain he’d put her through.

Archie listened to the voicemail until the phone warned him it was about to die. He wanted to call her again. To tell her exactly where he was. To beg her to come to him. When the phone died, he stared at the phone.

It wasn’t until Vegas began frantically barking that Archie woke up as if from a dream. He picked the axe up and headed over the hill.


End file.
